


Hellcat

by SvengoolieCat



Series: Sven's 007Fest 2018 [7]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, Angst, Bond is a cat, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-15 09:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15409725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SvengoolieCat/pseuds/SvengoolieCat
Summary: Prompt: actual!cat Bond is picked up from the shelterHerein is a story of a world-weary cat and his human minion. Moneypenny rescues James Bond from the shelter and gives him a new mission--look after Q. Hijinks ensue.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A contribution to the fluff vs angst week of the 007 Fest! Here's a little bit of both (although it does skew more towards fluff.)

 

 

“I need a cat,” a woman announces. She’s tall and slim, wearing killer stilettos and an expression that brooks no argument. Bond’s ears prick at the sound of her voice, and he peers out of his cage.

“We have a lot of cats,” the volunteer on staff says. “Our kittens are this way—”

“No, I need a cat,” the woman insists. “You have any that are hard to adopt out? No one wants?”

“I—I, yes. We do.” The volunteer points at Bond. “That one.”

Bond fluffs up and hisses. _Rude_. Granted, it was true, but did the weasel-faced little mousedick have to say so?

“He’s mean, scarred up, bites, and did this to me earlier.” The guy holds up one hand, clumsily bandaged, with blood from some of the deeper scratches seeping through. “The last person who tried to pet him ended up with stitches. If he were a dog, he’d have been put down already. As it is, he’s on the list for euthanasia on Monday morning.”

Bond growls, and goes to the back of his small, stinking cage to curl up with his back to the entire world.

“Perfect.” The woman marches over. Bond can smell her perfume. It’s nice, a clean smell that cuts through the scents of industrial strength cleaners and despair that permeate through the kennel.

“Uh, ma’am. I do have to ask. Why him and what purpose do you possibly have for a hell-beast like that?”

There’s silence behind him, and despite himself, Bond’s ears prick up with curiosity.

“I’ll just get the paperwork, shall I?” the volunteer sounds nervous and he beats a hasty retreat.

“Hey, kitty,” the woman says. Now that the lackey is gone, the woman’s voice is softer and kinder. Bond bends a big, scarred ear back to listen. “Come here and let me look at you,” she said.

Bond ignores her. Waits for the door to open and intrusive, rough hands. Prepares to bite.

They don’t come. The volunteer returns. “Here’s his papers. And since you’re taking this demon off our hands, we’re offering you a starter kit to go with him that we usually send with kittens: a cat carrier, small bag of food, a collar, and a coupon book for litter and toys, redeemable in our pet shop.”

“Excellent. It says here that his name is James Bond?”

“His previous owner was some bigshot writer who died. Had a weird name, like Vespa? Whatever, she was the one who wrote that series about the spy? Named her cat after her main character, 007.”

The woman starts laughing. “Oh, this is perfect. Vesper Lynd?”

“Yeah, her. It’s kind of a sad story. She died of flu or pneumonia or something and was discovered by her neighbor two days later. Nobody wanted this beast, surprise, surprise, and so he ended up here.”

Bond hears the scratch of pen across paper. It was a familiar sound, and one that he remembered well from happier, softer days. He curls tighter into a ball.

“All right, Ms. Moneypenny. Congratulations, you have adopted…that. I hope you’re very happy, and if you aren’t, don’t bring him back here.”

The door to Bond’s cage swings open.

Ms. Moneypenny clicks her tongue. “Come on, Mr. Bond. Shall we go? I have a very important mission for you.”

Well, anywhere had to be better than this joint. He can always escape if he wants to. Bond waits a few long seconds, just to make a point, and then uncurls.

Ms. Moneypenny is smiling at him, an expression that lights up her dark eyes and animates her face. He twitches his whiskers and she holds up the cat carrier to the door. “Come on, handsome boy,” she says. “We’ve places to go.”

Bond gets in the cage.

 

***************

Bond regrets getting in the cage.

The woman drives like a fucking maniac. She loads his carrier into the middle of the backseat of her car, angled so the carrier is facing forward. It’s a Jeep, and he can see the windshield out the front of the carrier and the passenger windows beyond the ventilation side-holes of the carrier. Ms. Moneypenny straps the carrier in with the seatbelt before getting in the driver’s seat. The Jeep starts up with a roar and then they’re off.

She weaves in and out of London traffic, immune to the blaring horns and when someone cusses out the window at her she maneuvers the Jeep just right to take off the offending car’s mirror.

Bond loses his cool and yowls.

He sees her grin in the rearview mirror. “You’re a former spy’s cat, have some dignity,” she says without one trace of pity.

Bond’s next yowl is less protest and more of a catty _fuck you_.

Their tongues might form different language-sounds, but he’s pretty sure she gets the message. This must be what Vesper had envisioned when she wrote chase scenes. Moneypenny is like a panther chasing a herd of small rodents and Bond gets the impression that the rodents don’t win. Ever. Bond resolutely shuts up once he’s said his piece, and Moneypenny cheerfully continues terrorizing the population of London.

When she finally whips into a parking spot in a garage, Bond is either numbed to the terror, or he’s fine with it. Before he can decide, the whirling dervish that is Moneypenny is pulling his carrier out of the back of her car and marching into a building. He has the impression of people seeing her coming and getting out of her way. They get onto an elevator with another human who tries to peer into the cage and Bond hisses, swipes at the barred door of the carrier with claws extended.

The human is in no real danger, but he jumps back regardless, and Bond is pleased. He growls, gravelly and mean and all the way from his little pink toe beans. The human scuttles off at the next level. Moneypenny chortles.

Bond is a bit confused. Usually behavior like that only gets him scolded.

They’re underground. Bond smells the dampness of dark earth and the river and feels the chill through his fur. Moneypenny’s heels click as she walks the long, darkish hallway toward a man sitting at a single, cluttered desk. There are overflowing bookshelves behind him, more books and papers strewn across the desk, and a cup of steaming Earl Grey tea is at his elbow. He is illuminated by a dim overhead light fixture and a single desk lamp. He looks up as Moneypenny approaches and stands from the desk.

“Happy birthday,” Moneypenny says. She puts the carrier down on the floor and opens the door for Bond.

“You got me a cat?” the man sounds confused. Bond doesn’t come out of his carrier yet because he’s not sure what is happening. Instead he just growls from the very back of the cage.

“Not just any cat. This is Mr. Bond. Mr. James Bond. Vesper Lynd’s old cat. Bond meet Q.”

There’s silence. Bond peeks out of his carrier in curiosity. He smells books and paper and the ink of pens, and he can’t quite help being drawn toward it. It smells like home.

“Are you serious?” Q sounds a bit awed.

“Completely. He’s been a hellcat, from what they told me. He bites, scratches, and is overall a tough looking customer. I think you’ll get along with him brilliantly. After all, you’ve managed to tame the agents to your will.”

“They are easily bought with explosives,” Q says dryly.

“And you need a cat to keep you company,” Moneypenny says. “You’ve been moping since your last one died.”

Bond’s whispers twitch. He knows death and loss. Q kneels by Bond’s carrier, and Bond is taken aback. He is younger than Bond expects. With a mess of wavy black hair, a lean face, and pretty green eyes behind black-rimmed glasses, he looks like he could have been Vesper’s littermate. The jumper he’s wearing is hideous, and Bond feels the urge to take his claws to it. Q looks a bit like an academic, and he looks…sad. But he smiles kindly at Bond anyway.

“Hello, Mr. Bond,” Q says. “I admired your last owner a lot. She was one of my favorite writers, and used to be one of us, you know. I have all her books. I bet you miss her.”

Bond creeps out of the carrier. _Yes_ , he thinks. _I do miss her_. She’d rescued him out of the gutter and given him a home. He went from the streets to sunny afternoons sleeping in his cat-bed while Vesper clicked along on the computer, sometimes reading him sections out loud to see how they sounded to the ear.

“Oh, aren’t you a big handsome boy,” Q croons. “Such lovely golden fur and pretty blue eyes. You must have very sharp claws, too.”

“He does,” Moneypenny says. “Tanner tried to make friends and Bond here wasn’t having it.”

“Tanner probably smells like his dogs.” Q turns back to Bond. “I’m not fond of dogs, either. Are you hungry?”

Bond stalks past Q, electing to sniff the man’s office instead. He leaps up on the desk, lands on a loose piece of paper and almost skids back off. His tail twitches side to side as he surveys the clutter. How could anyone work in this? It was a travesty. Clearly the man with the sad face needs all the help he can get. Starting with a clean workspace.

Bond huffs through his fangs and sends a shiny metal pen sailing through the air.

Q scrambles to catch it, and Moneypenny doubles over laughing.

 “The first thing he goes for is an _exploding pen_!” Moneypenny wheezes. “This is meant to be. He is absolutely your cat. Have fun, boys.” She bends down and scratches Bond under the chin, “Look after him, Bond, he’s sweet but a bit hopeless,” she says and then she’s gone.

So that’s his mission? Well then. He does like having a job. And as much as it pains his cold, dark little cat heart to do it (living with a book-hoarding writer most of his life does rub off) he sends a heavy textbook that weighs almost as much as he does off the edge of the desk.

There. Already the desk is looking clearer.

He looks defiantly at Q, and sits in the clear space, wrapping his tail neatly around his paws.

Q sighs, picks the book up off the floor, and puts it away. On a bookshelf, with other books. Where it belongs.

“Happy?” Q asks, hands on hips.

Bond deliberately knocks a handful of drafting pencils off the desk without losing eye contact with Q.

Q finds a dusty mug and puts all his pens and pencils in it, then places it beside his computer.

Bond coughs out a rusty purr of approval and supervises his new minion in his housekeeping tasks, batting at Q’s person and things threateningly whenever he pauses. Once the office has been straightened to his satisfaction, Bond curls up on the corner of the desk for a nap.

Later, Q wakes him up with a gentle pet on the head. Bond wakes up fighting, and Q snatches his hand back, only minor scratches for his trouble.

Bond flattens his ears and waits for the yelling, but Q just looks at the scratches ruefully. “Don’t touch you while you’re sleeping. Got it. Shall we go home? I don’t expect you want to stay in my drafty underground lair all night.”

Bond slinks back into his carrier and curls up into a ball at the very back.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

Q takes Bond home with him. Home becomes a two bedroom flat in Chelsea, and Bond slowly adjusts to his new life and person. Q is a serene presence who dances like a dork to classic rock in the privacy of his apartment and Bond folds into his new life. Most days, Q takes Bond to work with him, and gives him the run of his vast underground lair of an office. Bond sleeps on the desk, chases mice and rats out of the wiring (always presenting the corpses to Q with great ceremony) and helps Q tinker with cars. He loves the sound of the Aston Martins when Q fires them up. It’s not uncommon to see Q working on car engines or modifications with Bond perched next to him, the boffin covered in engine grease and leaning over the engines while the tawny cat peers over his shoulder.

Nobody pets him, except Moneypenny and Q. Bond is a companionable cat, but he doesn’t like random people pawing at his beautiful fur. He works hard to keep it in order, and usually Q’s soft warning of “he bites” is enough to get people to back off and leave him be. Some of the more ardent cat-people try to make friends anyway, which is why Bond has a growing collection of treats and catnip mice he stashes all over. Occasionally he shows his appreciation by leaving them a dead mouse on their workstation. He makes the concession for Moneypenny because he’s aware of how much he owes her, and he just…likes Q. A lot.

Bond sees a lot of people. His minion has minions of his own, and Q supervises them with the same unflappable patience he directs towards Bond. Some of the human people are called agents, a word Bond used to hear Vesper use with admiration in her writing. In practice, this breed of human is mostly insufferable, but Bond quickly figures out how to handle them: like they’re cats with bad manners. They strut into Q’s territory, all swagger and charm and unrepentant mischief. The first time Bond sees one of them pocket an item off Q’s desk, he bites the offender hard enough to draw blood.

After that, they treat him with wariness and respect he is due. He gargoyles over Q’s workstation, giving the stink eye to anyone who looks like they’re up to tricks. There’s a kerfuffle over a shiny gold pen that all the agents seem to want—the same one that Bond batted off Q’s desk on the first day—so Bond solves the problem himself by taking it and hiding it in his workplace cat-bed. There is a frantic search for it afterward, but when Q finishes tossing his own office, he concludes that “The bloody agents are all goddamn kleptos,” and appears to give the pen up for dead. Bond is proud of himself: he’s successfully guarding Q’s things from marauding agents. Ha.

The success of the pen means that Bond quietly removes a few other small, popular items for safekeeping. A watch, a belt-buckle, a shiny pair of cufflinks, and a lockpick tool all keep the pen company. He stashes them in and under the blanket Q leaves in his cat-carrier. It’s the one place where Bond knows no one will dare disturb him. When they go home, Q always leaves the carrier open by the door, and Bond waits until Q is in the shower or goes to bed before he transfers the items to the safe place under his cat-bed in the living room.

He guards Q, too. It’s clear that his new human minion is more of a soft indoor kitty, and less like the rough-and-tumble alley-cats that frequent his lair. And Q, bless the scrawny brat, is clueless. He moves around these sometimes hulking, always dangerous creatures like they’re nothing so much as kittens, even scolding them, both in person and through a headset while he does things on the computer. Bond knows this because he can hear the agent’s voices, tinny through the microphones. Bond makes sure to hiss at each one of them thoroughly, and the one agent who touches Q a little too familiarly on the shoulder finds himself battling off a furious ball of bitey, clawing fur.

That one did make Q a bit angry. Apparently, he likes the feral alley-cats. He’s soft-hearted like that. Bond is not. Bond knows a predator when he sees it and has already lost one human minion. He’s not about to lose this one, too.

There’s one agent that drives Bond absolutely fucking batty. Q calls him Richard Sterling when the agent is vexing him—which is most of the time—or just Sterling the rest of the time. Sterling is the human embodiment of a bad catnip-trip hangover. He’s not much bigger than Q, height-wise, but he is solid muscle. He’s blond and blue-eyed, and dresses so impeccably that Bond grudgingly appreciates the care the agent takes with his grooming. Bond is fastidious, himself.

Whenever Sterling is around, Bond hears Q’s heart pick up like a cornered mouse’s and sees him color in the face like he has a fever and Q gets even more awkward than usual. Bond worries that perhaps he’s falling sick. He’s been down that road before, with fevers and coughing. The idea that the same could happen to Q keeps him awake through his scheduled naps and the sleep deprivation makes him grumpier.

“He reminds me of you, sometimes,” Q tells Bond one day, after the agent has swaggered out of Q’s lair with his kit and a mission. Q is sitting in his chair with his feet on the desk and enjoying a break and his third cup of tea with a biscuit. “If you were human, I think you’d be like him. All smooth confidence and dapper suits and good scotch, and you’d leave a string of broken hearts in your wake. Mine, too, probably.”

The admiration in Q’s voice aside, Bond has never been _so insulted in his life_ by the comparison and refuses to speak to Q for the rest of the day. Q huffs a laugh when Bond flattens his ears and quite deliberately turns his back to Q. The very tip of his tail keeps time like an irritated metronome.

The next time the agent shows up with his smarmy face that Bond wants to claw off, Bond summons up the grossest, splashiest hairball he can manage and projectile-vomits it up across Sterling’s shoes. It’s an impressive hairball; Bond had been working on it for _days_. Then he prances back in a challenging war dance, ears like airplane wings, back arched, tail puffed, and claws extended as he bounces on the tips of his toes. He’s seen the agents do something similar while playfighting, but Bond was deadly serious about doing battle for Q’s honor.

Q’s face is horrified. “I’m so sorry, Sterling, I have no idea what got into him.”

Bond hisses and keeps up the bouncing war dance in a semi-circle around him while making ungodly sounds, but Sterling is big _and_ stupid, and thus he just stands there, blinking and gaping like a moron.

Q scoops Bond up, scratching behind his ears just a moment before Bond is locked away in his carrier again. He growls and rattles the cage door on its hinges with both his front paws.

“He really doesn’t like me at all, does he?” Sterling asks.

“He hates your guts. I wouldn’t take it personally. Bond’s not a people person,” Q says bluntly. He unearths a roll of industrial paper towels and a can of Lysol from a cabinet, and he and Sterling do their best to wipe the sight and smell of hairball off Sterling’s once-shiny brogues. “I’m pretty sure these are ruined. Send me the bill when you get them replaced.”

“I think I’ve destroyed enough of your tech to make up for it and then some,” Sterling says. “Although, if you feel guilty, you could always come to dinner with me.”

Bond hears Q’s heart do that stuttering thing, and Q’s cheeks and nose goes bright red. He doesn’t look at the agent but absently rearranges things on his desk. “I could be convinced,” he says finally.

Oh _hell no_. Bond yowls death-threats from his carrier.

“I don’t think he approves,” Sterling says, leaning over the desk into Q’s space. “A forbidden affair. What do you say, Quartermaster?”

“I’d say Saturday at seven. If you’re still in the country.” Q smiles like an idiot at the other idiot.

Sterling returns the smile slow, with twinkling blue eyes. Bond will scratch them out. He will. As soon as he figures out how to escape the locking mechanism on the carrier door.

“It’s a date, then.”

And then Sterling is swaggering away with his hands in his pockets, Q is staring after him like a moon-eyed kitten who’s just discovered the joy of a catnip mouse, and Bond is fuming. His tail thumps from side to side in the carrier.

Q rescues him from the cage. Bond knows by now that Q won’t raise a hand to him, but even he is surprised by the elated way Q hugs him and dances a short Viennese waltz around the desk with him.

“You are a horrible, terrible, mean mean kitty,” Q sings to him. “But as a wingman, you’re not half bad.” He plants a big, annoying kiss on top of Bond’s head right between his ears, with an exaggerated “mwah” sound.

Bond huffs through his fangs and boops Q gently but firmly on the nose with a big, soft paw.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The date doesn’t happen on Saturday at seven, but it’s not because Sterling is out of the country. Q had been doing a zombie shuffle since he got up. Bond noticed that by time they went home for the weekend that Q’s color was a bit off, and he was sneezing a bit. He smelled funny, like sickness. Bond slept at the end of Q’s bed that night, half-awake to avoid the thrashing as Q tossed and turned and the fever-smell got stronger.

By time Q gets up the next morning, Bond is grouchy from lack of sleep and keeping an eye on his human minion. Q showers with Bond sitting in an attentive cat-loaf right outside the bathroom, dresses in his favorite pair of flannel _Star Trek_ pajama bottoms and ratty t-shirt, and goes straight back to bed, this time with a new, wet-sounding cough. Q doesn’t bother measuring the cough syrup with the little plastic cup but takes a good swig straight from the bottle like a heathen and gets back under the covers.

Around noon he fumbles for his phone on the nightstand and dials a number. Bond has given up all pretense of catlike aloofness and is glued to Q’s side. He follows him everywhere, be it to the kitchen or the bathroom, and then back to bed.

“I’m going to have to rain-check tonight,” Q croaks into the phone, and sneezes twice in a row into a tissue. “I think I caught the flu that’s going around MI-6. Yeah. No, I feel like death. If you want, we try for next week— _cough_ —thank you. Bye.” Q tosses the phone on his bed and threw himself back amongst the pillows, snuffling.

“I hate being sick,” Q tells Bond. “At least it’s Saturday and raining today, so we have an excuse to laze about.”

Bond meows at him.

Q pets him reassuringly. “It’s fine. We’ll sit here and watch some nature documentaries. Look, there’s a bunch of nature documentaries because it’s Shark Week. You’ll like these. There’s fishes in them.”

Bond curls up next to him, head and one paw leaning against Q’s ribs and he keeps up a steady rumbling purr until he falls asleep.

When he wakes, the sky outside Q’s bedroom window is dark with storm clouds and rain is lashing the glass. The nature show is still on, but Q is fast asleep, one hand stilled on Bond’s back where Q had been absently petting him.

“Mrrrop?” Bond asks, getting up and stretching.

Q doesn’t move. He’s breathing, the heavy congested sounds of illness. Bond is about to bop Q on the nose to wake him up when there’s a knock at the door. Q doesn’t so much as twitch.

Bond leaps off the bed and runs to the front door when the knock sounds again, and he yowls.

“Oh, good. The hell-beast is loose,” comes a muffled voice through the door.

Bond howls again, with new urgency, and he hears metal scraping and then the door cracks open. Bond is sitting right there.

One bright blue eye peers in, from a safe distance. Sterling and Bond stare at each other for a moment.

“You aren’t going to attack me, are you? Because I’ve heard the stories.”

Bond growls, but the sound is half-hearted and they both hear it.

“Okay, I’m coming in,” Sterling says, gingerly opening the door. He enters cautiously, looking up and around before fully committing to coming inside. “God, I hope he doesn’t have this rigged to electrocute me.”

The smell of food wafts inside the apartment, and Bond dances back. The agent closes the door behind him and calls, “Q?”

The agent pads into the apartment, putting the paper bag on the kitchen table. “Q?” he calls again, and this time he sounds a bit more concerned. Bond trots to the bedroom to check on Q, the agent following in his pawprints.

Bond hops up on the bed and Q still doesn’t wake. He meows.

“Q? Are you awake?” Sterling asks. Bond shoots him a dirty cat-look. Does Q look awake to him?

Sterling frowns and reaches out to gently touch Q’s shoulder, shaking him a little. Still nothing. Sterling put his hand on Q’s sweaty forehead, brushing back a messy mop of dark hair.

“Q.” The agent’s voice is like a whip, and even Bond looks at him. “Shit.” He has his phone out and he’s searching for the MI6 clinic in his contacts.

Bond pounces on Q’s stomach.

Q wakes up coughing and sputtering, “HA-AHH. What the hell?” he croaks. He blearily looks up at Sterling and starts. “Holy fucking shit. Where’d you come from?”

Sweaty with fever, hair a mess, and without his glasses, he looks more like a disheveled kitten than ever before.

“I brought you dinner,” Sterling says. He sits on the edge of the bed. “But no one answered, and your cat sounded a bit panicky through the door, so I let myself in.”

Bond let it pass. He’d been _concerned_.

Q scratches Bond behind one golden ear. “Not surprising,” he says. “Vesper Lynd died of pneumonia. He probably remembers.”

_Of course, I remember_ , Bond thinks. How could he forget?

“Vesper Lynd? The one who wrote those trashy spy novels? What’s she got to do with anything?”

“He’s her cat,” Q says. “Moneypenny acquired him at the shelter.” Bond headbutts Q’s shoulder, relieved.

Q coughed to clear his throat a bit. “Uh, let’s relocate, shall we?” he shoves back the blankets, snags his dressing gown from a hook on the back of the door, and does his zombie-shuffle to the kitchen.

Sterling chortles after him. “Finally, I get to see the infamous pajamas of mass destruction,” he says. “And on the first date, too.”

Q washes his hands while Sterling finds plates and utensils. “Wanker,” he says, but he sits in the chair Sterling pulls out for him. There are four chairs. Bond takes up one of them, so he can keep an eye on both the troublesome humans.

“Hot and sour soup is good for colds,” Sterling says, and hands Q the soup and a spoon. The agent behaves himself and Bond settles in for a nap while they eat, keeping one ear open in case he’s needed.

Sterling feeds Q up with the contents of the wonderfully fragrant takeaway bag and makes him a hot toddy, all under Bond’s careful supervision, since the tawny cat eventually gives up any pretense of not keeping close watch.

“I’ll come by tomorrow, if you like,” Sterling says. He looks awkward for the first time Bond has ever seen, and Bond hears both human hearts do that weird, skipping, cornered-mouse thing. Oh, dear Cat-Goddess, it must be catching. How humans have survived this long is beyond him.

Q clears his throat and stares into the depths of the hot toddy as though it held the answer to life, the universe, and everything. “If you like. I’m not very good company right now. And you might get sick.”

“I’ll live dangerously.” Sterling’s eyes were doing that twinkling thing again.

Wait. Bond looks between the two of them, and at the remains of the food on the table. Was Sterling _courting_ Q? Like an alley-cat bringing Q an offering of a mouse or squirrel and leaving it on his doorstep? Was Sterling's hanging around Q-Branch and flirting over equipment his version of sitting on a fence outside Q's window and singing him a love song at a full moon? 

Oh, the horror. Bond’s not sure if he has a hairball big enough to puke onto the situation. He huffs through his fangs and his ears airplane. Sterling steals an uncertain look at Bond, and the two of them eye each other warily. 

Q frowns, like he’s trying to think of something, and brightens when it finally dawns. “You know Lynd’s name. Have you read her novels?”

“I know _of_ them,” Sterling says. “And I saw the film that came out a couple years ago. But the cat’s probably read more than I have.” He grins like he made a joke, but both Q and Bond glower at him. Bond has heard every word that Vesper Lynd wrote--one of her methods was to read her novels and short stories out loud every so often to remind herself of the content and rhythm of her stories. Bond was a captive audience, but he hadn't minded.

Q holds up a finger and gets to his feet. “You cannot, and should not, judge a book by its film,” he says. “Unless it’s _Twilight_. The films were better than the books, and the movies were _terrible_.” He’s a little wobbly, but he makes it to his living room bookshelves and selects a novel.

On his way back to the kitchen he trips over Bond’s cat-bed by the sofa. He doesn’t fall, but he hops in place to regain balance and makes a noise that was half surprise, half . Then he lifts the soft flannel blanket that covers the cat-bed and just kind of freezes.

“All right, there?” Sterling asks.

“Yep.” Q lowers the blanket and comes back to the table, placing the novel in front of Sterling. “Just lost my balance for a moment. Here. You may borrow this, but I want it back. It’s an autographed copy.”

“Thank you?” Sterling examines the novel. “I’m sure it will be better than the film,” he says, although he doesn’t sound like he believes it.

“It will be. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to kick you out and go back to bed. Thanks for dinner,” Q says, and ushers Sterling to the door. Once the agent is gone, he locks the door and turns to Bond. “I just discovered where a few missing items from work ended up. And all this time I’ve been blaming the agents, but it’s you.”

Bond purrs at him, and nonchalantly washes his whiskers. Q’s mouth twitches in a smile. “Are you guarding my things from theft by thieving them first?”

Bond purrs louder. Q scoops him up, scratching behind big scarred ears as he goes back to the bedroom. “I do appreciate that, but there’s enough explosive material in your cat-bed to blow this entire flat to smithereens.”

He puts Bond on the end of the bed and Bond scampers up to what he has deemed as his side and his pillow as Q gets back under the covers. Q takes another dose of medication and sinks back into his pillows with a congested sigh. Bond waits until Q has settled before he flops over next to him, paws in the air and purring.

“I suppose you’re right. If we haven’t blown up yet, we’re probably fine until tomorrow.”

Q can discover the cat-bed hoard, Bond thinks. He has other ones.

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Treed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15604827) by [KtwoNtwo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtwoNtwo/pseuds/KtwoNtwo)




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